The Ghosts That We Knew
by evalovelace
Summary: "She can't seem to flush out the lingering worry and she so wants to be rid of it, not used to this compression on her lungs, a weight of stones like a condemnation." Cops and Robbers one shot. 4x07


So give me hope in the darkness that I will see the light  
>Cause oh that gave me such a fright<br>But I will hold as long as you like  
>Just promise me that we'll be alright<p>

-_The Ghosts That We Knew_

Mumford and Sons

* * *

><p>Kate's nerves are frayed, wires stripped of their protective coating, raw and sparking with excess electricity.<p>

Her hands shake with the residual fear that had replaced her blood hours earlier and she grips the wine glass tighter, willing her body to not betray her in this. She can't seem to wash her mind of the explosion. All she sees, even now, even looking directly at him, whole and safe and smiling, is the billow of dust, the deep boom of the detonation and the ache of despair that split her open like a knife to soft flesh.

Castle's table is saturated with Martha's attempt at restoring normalcy and the intimate act of family dinner to regain equilibrium, like the whole day was just a series of wacky events, a cartoon amalgamation that was resolved quickly and quirkily.

Kate takes a strangled sip of her wine, hoping no one, not even Castle will notice that she can barely eat. Her stomach is in ropes, thick heavy coils that knot her together like shoelaces impossible to untie.

The Castle family is smiling, joking, inflating helium into their Mylar day and Kate can't seem to keep her poker face in place. She takes an inward breath, tells herself that they are safe, that they're not even injured, tries to assure the emotions pinging her insides like pin balls that they are fine.

She suddenly realizes how much she hates that word.

Fine.

Each letter carries so many lies. The sharp demarcation of the F, the urgency of the I, the hollow of the N and the soft slope of the E, all bare witness to the lies she tells herself; the lies that she tells him, the lies she tells the world.

Fine.

She is most certainly not fine.

But what can she do?

She can sit at his table, talk and laugh like she's done this a million times before, like it's natural and normal for her to be a part of a family. She can go on pretending, pantomiming like a Parisian Pierrot, a mute and a fool both.

What she wants to do is take his hand, desperate for the anchor of life, wanting more than ever to assure herself with touch, the thought of which floors her.

And makes her tremble.

She stills her hand again, clenches it against her thigh so hard her knuckles turn white and all the while she tries to keep her smile in place, pinning it up like tacks to a corkboard.

She doesn't let her gaze linger on him, still mortally embarrassed by what she revealed in the bank vault when relief, happiness and one other emotion she has no name for hit her like a rock to a window, shattering her carefully paneled glass and exposing her to the elements.

All she could see was him.

The smile she gave him, the one that she always held in, burst like freed mercury and she just couldn't contain it. Not then.

But now, in his loft, with his daughter and mother, she is careful with it, doesn't let it out, knowing just how unstable it can be and she can't handle anything volatile at the moment.

She'll surely combust.

* * *

><p>Castle says something, a quip about solving murders while being hostage, and turns to her, his smile intent and earnest, this man with his unshakeable faith in her. Struggling against her atoms, Kate turns to him and meets his eyes, so blue and clear, like a mountain lake, untouched by darkness.<p>

A delicious happiness runs through her like spring honey to see it, to see unwavering optimism even in the bleak reality that humanity presents them. She wants this for him, to not be marked by the somber blackness like she is. She wants him whole and blemish free so that one day she too can return to the nimble hopefulness that cloaks him like soft muslin.

She wants to erase all her scars, to turn from them, shed her old skin and return new, an animal released from captivity.

She needs this.

This dinner with him, infusing her with something other than anxiety and fear, liberating her from the desperate thump of her heart as it withered in it's bone cage as she watched the building collapse into itself like it was made of cards consisting only of clubs and jokers.

She can't seem to flush out the lingering worry and she so wants to be rid of it, not used to this compression on her lungs, a weight of stones like a condemnation.

Suddenly, shockingly, jarringly, she feels his fingers close against her wrist; his eyes still glued to his daughter, the girl valiantly attempting levity in the face of all she has experienced today. Alexis, sitting at the table with that bright smile, brushing off his parental worry like a housefly on a shoulder.

She can't breathe.

She can't move.

She worries that she'll give everything away, right here at the table with his mother and daughter across from her and his hand twined with hers underneath the table.

His fingers trace the delicate pattern of life, here at the confluence of veins and she's certain he can feel the trip of her pulse against his own.

She bites her lip, hard enough to break the tentative scars there, concentrates on Alexis and her story, pointedly ignoring his methodical mapping of her skin in the low light of his dinning room.

She knows he can feel the ripple of her knowledge of him, like a stone thrown into a pond.

Aftershocks.

All too soon, Alexis is excusing herself from the table, citing tiredness and something else she is not privy to. Martha gets up as well, loading dishes onto her hands with the skill of a waitress.

His hand leaves hers, surreptitiously dropped just as it was furtively picked up.

She feels the mark of his fingerprints, left in oil, staining her skin with fierce brush strokes like an impressionist painting. She goes to help, watches as Martha trots after Alexis, up the stairs, to the safety of beds and nighttime routines.

* * *

><p>She is alone with him.<p>

For the first time all day.

Her throat has closed up, the knot in her stomach tightens, threatens to never relax.

"More wine?" He turns to her, voice soft and low, a bank against all those things leaking from his eyes.

And hers.

She can't not look at him now. She drinks him in, this man before her. This man that she almost lost today.

She wants to reach out and smooth down that lick of hair at his temple, wants to wrap her arms around him, a solid wall of assurance in human form, wants to sit with him in the darkness of the city night and be still, unmoving, just being.

Instead, she shakes her head and bites into her lip, impeding the flow of emotion in her like a tidal wave.

She's held on for this long, she can't give in now, not here, not with him although the thought of finally succumbing to the myriad emotions rumbling through her like a stampede is so appealing with his broad arms within reach.

"No, it's late and we've had a really long day. I think I should be going." Her voice doesn't hitch and she is inordinately proud.

"Yeah, you're right." He nods, takes the empty glass from her hand.

She grabs her coat, feels the grasp on herself falter, and worries she'll do something so completely unlike her, like let loose her smile, the one that has been bottled back up, or press her lips to his, give him all her gratefulness and happiness with a kiss.

They reach his door and she turns to thank him, thank him for this night, for not dying, for remaining light amidst the overwhelming darkness of her life but she only manages a small sound before he grabs her for a hug.

Deep, rich, warm, familiar like a favorite song.

She forgets to breathe, is only aware of how he feels against her, how her taut muscles release like a cut to a rubber band.

"Goodnight Kate." He steps back from her, his face lucent and brilliant like a blaze.

"Goodnight Castle," she manages, edging away from him as her body screams with mutiny.

His door closes and she is left with her heart in her throat, willing those cracks in her to widen.

To let in the light.

* * *

><p><em>Author's note: After Cops and Robbers, it shocked me that Kate and Castle could so easily dismiss all the anxiety and fear that they were feeling through the whole debacle and be so cavalier in his apartment. So this came about.<em>

_Disclaimer: I don't own these characters_


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